Alpha 5.0

[mat422]

You are courageous. Good ! You'll overcome ! Don't feel bad about depression. It's not a me tal "illness"! That's BS. You are a creator and you created that depression programming based on past events( namely family's behaviours). Since you are the creator, you can eliminate that depression and create something else. There are tons of ways of getting rid depression. Shannon has got a sub on depressionthat could help when you are done Alpha or the happiness & joy sub or positive thinking or gratitude or Life tune up.

Personally, I wouldn't tell my family I had depression but it depends. Are they negative critical people ? If you have depression, chances are, they are. Do they know how to deal with depression/anxiety/fear, etc ? My family wouldn't understand how to help with depression and they can be quite critical ans negative. I don't tell them because I don't want more of what caused my negativity.
Given that, I avoid as much as I can opening up about this except if it were a solid mentor who's got good knowledge like Shannon for example.

That's my take

Ray

I understand where you are coming from, but to say depression isn't a mental illness, it minimizes it. And in today's society we need to push more to understand why individuals suffer from depression. Programming has something to do with it, yeah. But you can take two individuals. One could have kind nurturing parents and the other can have critical negative ones. Sometimes the outcome isn't what you'd think. The child with kind parents grows up with depression and the child with critical ones doesn't. It's not as simple as most people would like to believe unfortunately.

My parents aren't critical at all. They've been nothing but supportive over the years. My biggest regret is not opening up to them as much as I should. They care about me and they want to see me grow and thrive. But it was my own embarrassment and shame that prevented me from telling them what I go through. I'm very lucky to have supportive parents. Even if they don't fully understand it, they try. Anybody would get frustrated watching a person make the same mistakes over and over again without knowing how to help them, so I don't hold it against them.

You are courageous. Good ! You'll overcome ! Don't feel bad about depression. It's not a me tal "illness"! That's BS. You are a creator and you created that depression programming based on past events( namely family's behaviours). Since you are the creator, you can eliminate that depression and create something else. There are tons of ways of getting rid depression.

I agree. I suffered from depression for most of my life following traumatic events in my childhood that I'd rather not go in to.

The point is: I had depression. I had reason to keep it around, and I learned to live with it. Then, one day, I decided I was tired of being depressed and didn't want to be anymore.

I sought help and tried a psychiatrist.

After a few sessions I realized that the only one who could "cure" my depression was me. That didn't mean "suck it up" or "deal with it" it meant look to the future and not look back.

I'm sure I still have the lingering effects especially when things get rough, but the main thing is to keep focused on progressing. Aim for the stars and never look down and you'll find yourself losing that depression very quickly.

Focusing on the future helps, but it's not just mental. It's not just sadness or negative feelings. It's a physical thing. I'm burned out, I'm tired, I'm slow, everything takes tremendous effort. I can't really aim for the stars, I've got nothing to shoot for at the moment. That's how it's always been for me since I was a teenager, when depression hit me. I used to think if I just focused on the future and started getting my life together things would get better. It's not the case. The external has limited impact on how I feel on the inside. Just realizing that and taking this depression thing more seriously instead of some minor phase that I need to grow out of is important. Pushing it away doesn't work, I've been pushing it away for too long. It's a serious problem in my life and it's only grown worse as I've gotten older.

I guess what I'm saying is this is like trying to run through a brick wall. You have to take down the brick wall first before you can move past it. So I have to start focusing on getting better before I can move forward. Ideally I'd want to do both at once, but I just have to accept that I have limited resources and instead of splitting my focus several different ways I should target this one obstacle.